Printshops are generally known as digital publishing configurations that contain one or more hard-copy output device devices, such as, for example, an offset press, an electro photographic printer, an inkjet printer and the like. Printshops convert printing orders, also known as print jobs, into finished printed material. Conventional methods stress the breaking of the print job down into component parts with the processing of each part of the print job occurring only following the completion of the previous part of the print job. Printshops do not necessarily constitute an organization in which all printing equipment is co-located together, but may in fact constitute partnerships between varying organizations whose locations may be geographically dispersed from one another. For example, one location may involve short-run print jobs, while other locations may generate long-run print jobs.
Conventional printshops are organized in a fashion that is functionally independent of print job complexity, print job mix, and total volume of print jobs. Typically, related equipment is grouped together. Thus, all printing equipment is grouped and located in a single locale. Similarly, all finishing equipment is generally grouped and located in a single locale. In other words, conventional printshops organize resources into separate departments, where each department corresponds to a type of process or operation that is performed to complete a print job. When a print job arrives from a customer, the print job sequentially passes through each department. Once the print job is completely processed by a first department, the print job gets queued for the next department.
Recent developments in the field of printing have seen emerging standards for printshop independent job description languages (PSDL). Such file formats allow for the specification of a printshop job in an independent manner. The details of the job, such as operations to be performed, resources required, and the actual data content of the job are included in the file. One such PSDL format, PPF (Print Production Format), was developed by the CIP3 consortium, the International Cooperation for Integration of Prepress, Press and Post press to provide a data packet that can be read by any CIP3 compliant vendor. Other examples of PSDL formats are the JDF and PCX file formats. When the print job is received by the printshop, the print job must be extracted from the PSDL file and a work plan generated (i.e., workflow). Normally, however, the customer is not aware of the printshop workflow, and hence, job content thereof does not include PSDL. PSDL is typically added by the printer.
The CIP3 Specification on Print Production Format, Version 2.1, for example, describes standard shapes and sizes for printer marks. CIP3 specification assumes that the prepress operator “knows” the output device requirements and how to generate and properly place such marks, usually by utilizing the capabilities of an imposition software application. Ideally, printer's marks should be added to a print job during prepress operations. Unfortunately, the addition of such printer's marks makes the job device-dependent. Printer's marks should therefore be automatically added to the job after the printer is selected and after the imposition is performed in the print data stream. Frequently the output device is not known at the prepress stage, or may be printed on varying devices having different printer's marks. Even if the device is known, the device's printer's marks are not known. Embodiments disclosed herein address such problems.